Charles I. (1600‒1649)

Charles I., king of England, third son of James I., born at
Dunfermline; failing in his suit for the Infanta of Spain, married
Henrietta Maria, a French princess, a devoted Catholic, who had great
influence over him, but not for good; had for public advisers Strafford
and Laud, who cherished in him ideas of absolute power adverse to the
liberty of the subject; acting on these ideas brought him into collision
with the Parliament, and provoked a civil war; himself the first to throw
down the gauntlet by raising the royal standard at Nottingham; in the end
of which he surrendered himself to the Scots army at Newark, who
delivered him to the Parliament; was tried as a traitor to his country,
condemned to death, and beheaded, 30th January, at Whitehall (1600‒1649).